No Virgin Island (13 page)

“So what did you tell the cops?” Neil asked.

“Just what I told you. That I saw Carter Johnson from the pool. He had stuff on the dining room table. It looked like he was packing, but I couldn’t see what from the distance through the screens. I cleaned the pool and left. He was still there.”

“What else did Janquar ask you?” Neil asked.

“He wanted to know if I had seen anyone else. He asked if anyone from Ten Villas had been there.”

Anyone from Ten Villas? Sabrina knew that meant her. Janquar wanted Seth to implicate her and it infuriated her.

“What did you say?” Neil asked. Sabrina thought she saw Neil holding his breath.

“I said I was the only person at Villa Mascarpone. The people at Ten Villas wouldn’t come until the guest had checked out,” Seth said.

“Okay, what about anyone else? Did you see anyone in the area, even on the ride out or back?” Neil asked.

“The only other person I saw that morning was Mr. Banks pulling into his driveway just as I was leaving,” Seth said.

“Why are you calling me?” Henry asked, his heart pounding in his ears. He hadn’t heard David’s voice since the day his lawyer had told him he had to stop all communications with him, including the midnight drunk dialing they’d both engaged in, or he would lose not only his job but also the settlement that would let him start over.

“How could I not? I just saw on INN that there’s been a murder on St. John at one of the villas you manage. Of course I called,” David said, the concern in his voice sounding genuine to Henry. But how could he ever trust any word he spoke? David had betrayed him, and during those late-night calls, Henry always let him know how contemptuous he found his behavior.

“I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure out how you could put the screws to me with your wife and with my job, David. I don’t know how you do anything. I don’t know how you put your head on your pillow at night and sleep, with all you did.”

“I know, I know. I was a beast. A Judas, like you said. I don’t suppose it matters how much I’m paying for it, does it? You probably don’t want to hear what’s gone on here, how I am an outcast at work—”

“No, I don’t,” Henry said, meaning it. He was surprised he didn’t want to savor the details about how miserable David was, how karma had got its man. Henry had put David behind him. He hadn’t forgotten him, hadn’t really stopped loving him. No, what he had done was finally accept that his life would not be as he had planned, and that had liberated him. He no longer missed the airline staff he had considered part of his family. He had a new family of friends on a small island and a business he was proud to call his. It was bad enough that his new life was being threatened by Carter Johnson’s murder, but did David think he could be yanked back into the past just because he was vulnerable? Could he?

“When I heard about the murder, Henry, and that it was at one of the villas you and that woman manage, I had to call and make sure you were okay. I saw Faith Chase beginning another crusade of destruction against your partner. I’m worried about you, Henry. I don’t want to see you swept into the brutal media frenzy Sabrina attracts. That’s why I called. That, and because I still love you. I always will,” David said. Henry thought he might be crying.

“I’d be better off if you hated me, given how you show your love,” Henry said.

“Do you really hate me, Henry?” Henry could hear the misery in David’s voice, the pain he had heard night after night on those secret telephone calls, when David would try to explain why he had screwed Henry over; how much David needed his pilot’s license, even if the airlines booted him; and how his wife could ruin him at work and destroy him financially.

“Are you still with her?” Henry asked, not wanting to but needing to know. David’s silence was his answer.

Henry pushed the
off
button on the phone.

After Neil and Seth left, Sabrina punched in the numbers to Mara’s home phone, picturing Mara frantic with worry about Kelly’s whereabouts. She hoped Rory wasn’t home to add to Mara’s troubles. She’d watched Rory Eagan at Bar None. He could be very charming and engaging with tourists, particularly with young beautiful female ones. He was bright enough and sometimes even funny. And he was very good looking—until you got to know him, and then his good looks faded.

Rory had hit on Sabrina when she’d first arrived on St. John. She had been drinking pretty regularly to numb the wounds still raw from the trial and had apparently lacerated his ego publicly at Bar None. Rory had been hostile to her ever since.

When he answered on the third ring, Sabrina could tell he was drunk.

“What do you want?” Rory asked when Sabrina asked for Mara.

“I want to speak to Mara. Please,” Sabrina said, hating to take any guff from him but knowing Mara needed and deserved to know where Kelly was.

“We don’t want you calling here. You’ve disgraced the whole island on national television. That woman, what’s her name? Making St. John sound like a crime mecca. Why don’t you just pack up and leave St. John to those of us who deserve to live here?” Rory said, cutting off the telephone call.

Sabrina sat still, stunned. At the moment, her priority was to let Mara know Kelly was with her and safe. But when the dust settled and Carter Johnson’s murderer was in custody, Sabrina planned to have a conversation with Rory Eagan to let him know that he was the one who didn’t deserve to live here. She decided to try to call Mara on her cell phone, hoping this would be part of the 50 percent of the time when there was cell phone reception out there at the end of Fish Bay. When Mara picked up, Sabrina could hear the concern in her voice.

“I was just about to get in the car and go look for her,” Mara said after Sabrina told her Kelly was with her and that Seth had brought Kelly there, thinking it was a safe place.

“She’s fine, Mara, although pretty upset about the confrontation with Rory and Seth.”

“It was awful. I’m sure she’s embarrassed that Rory behaved like that in public,” Mara said, and Sabrina could hear that she got it. Sabrina wondered what a public humiliation would do to a sensitive, even fragile adolescent.

They agreed Kelly would stay with Sabrina and that Mara would pick her up in the morning to catch the ferry to St. Thomas and get her back into her routine before she thought twice about it.

“Okay,” Sabrina said to Kelly, who was still rocking on her chair but now with Sabrina’s permission. “All set with Mara.”

“Is she mad at me?”

“She didn’t sound it,” Sabrina said, not really wanting to become involved in parental politics.

“I feel bad for her,” Kelly said.

“How so?” Sabrina asked, figuring Kelly wanted to tell her. She was always hearing confessions, revelations, and secret information for some reason. At the television station, she’d known who was sleeping with whom, who’d had “work” done, and when someone was negotiating a new contract with another station. She’d kept her mouth shut about it all because she didn’t want to get involved with the messes people created in their own lives. That had only seemed to encourage people to tell her more. Sabrina figured she could at least lend an ear to a kid who had the misfortune to be the daughter of Rory Eagan.

“My father isn’t very nice to her, even though she’s a great stepmother to me and Liam. She’s taken care of us since we were four,” Kelly said, pulling her knees in and placing her feet under her. She smiled for the first time that evening, and Sabrina thought her grin looked mischievous and slightly familiar.

“How old are you anyway?” Sabrina asked, thinking she seemed more worldly than most teenagers, which surprised her, given that she was raised on an island.

“Seventeen. One more year here on this miserable island and then I get to go to college. I might go to Boston or New York,” Kelly said, clearly excited. “Except, I don’t know now that I’ve met Seth. I don’t think I can leave him. Maybe he’ll have to leave St. John too.”

Oh dear God, Sabrina thought. Does it start this early? A beautiful young woman, clearly bright and articulate, with a stepmother willing to write a check to any of the best colleges, and Kelly might sacrifice it all for a boyfriend? She wondered if they were sleeping together. She hoped they weren’t, knowing that they probably were.

“Keep your options open,” Sabrina said, not wanting to anger her.

“I just wish Liam were home so Mara wouldn’t have to be alone with him. Or that those people weren’t at Villa Mascarpone so that he could leave and go to his other house,” Kelly said, now frowning. She was as beautiful frowning as she was smiling.

“His other house?” Sabrina asked.

“That’s what we call it. When he gets ugly or comes home totaled after closing Bar None, he stays next door.”

Next door? With the Banks? Were they that kind to their neighbors? The only other house was Villa Mascarpone.

Sabrina had to know. “With the Banks?” she asked. “They are very nice folks, aren’t they?”

“The old people? Yeah, I guess they’re nice. I don’t really know, except Mrs. Banks sends over some great desserts sometimes. No, at the rental villa. Mara has extra keys,” Kelly said and then seemed to realize this was something she should not be telling her. Sabrina said nothing and tried to stay expressionless.

“She always goes over and cleans up after him. I’ve even helped her,” Kelly said. “Please don’t tell Mara I told you. I’m already screwed. It’s just, we need to get him out of the house before . . .”

Before what? Sabrina thought. Before he hit one of them? Before he got so ugly and belligerent his words were worse than blows?

“Don’t worry, honey,” Sabrina said, meaning it but not promising her she wouldn’t have a conversation with Mara. She would, but Kelly would never know about it.

Deirdre flung open the gate to the pool and stepped inside the courtyard, her heart in her throat. She could see Sam through the glass sliding doors. He was putting the bar stools back in their proper place, and she knew he had probably wiped the feet of each clean of any dirt from the path. He was always cleaning up after her, tidying up her messes, and tonight it broke her heart to know she didn’t deserve this kind man.

He came to her as soon as she slipped through the doors but said nothing.

“I’ve lost them, Sam,” Deirdre said, her voice flat.

“What happened, honey?” he asked.

“Nothing. Everything. I met Kelly. I saw Kelly. She’s not my daughter.”

“You can’t be saying . . . He was so sure. I know she’s older, but we expected some surprises,” Sam said, taking Deirdre by the hand and walking her over to sit on the sofa. A single nectarine-colored hibiscus Sam had picked
for her earlier sat on the glass coffee table floating in a martini glass.

“I don’t mean that. I mean it’s too late. She’s already a beautiful young woman, spirited, independent. She’s already who she is. There is no room or time for me to be part of any of that,” Deirdre said.

She looked over at Sam, who had remained quiet. He always seemed to know when to speak and when to be silent. He had tears in his eyes, and she knew they were for her.

“The stepmother seems to be a very good person. Kind, but firm, with a sense of humor. I should be grateful that she’s done such a good job. I am grateful for that. But it’s her influence, her ideas, her values that have shaped Liam and Kelly into the people they are today, the people they will always be. They don’t know me. They have nothing that comes from me, Sam.”

“I don’t think that’s entirely true. You cannot discount how important those first four years were. They were the formative ones, you know. How many experts have we talked to? Books have we read? They all say the same thing. A mother’s early influence when attachment is forming is irreplaceable. Please give yourself credit for that much.”

“But do I disrupt their lives now? There is very little I can offer them, other than proof that their father is a horrid man, which I believe they already know. Certainly, Kelly does. She was pretty vocal about it tonight,” Deirdre said.

Sam reached over and took her two hands in his.

“You listen to me, Deirdre Leonard. Your children deserve to know the truth. They deserve to know they have a mother who loves them, who has always loved them and never stopped looking for them. What they do with it is up to them. They have the right to know that he’s been lying to them: that you are not dead, were never an alcoholic who slammed into a tree, and that they were taken from you. We now know he has told that to anyone who will listen since he came to St. John. Certainly, your children must have heard the lie. He took those children from you, but he also took you from those children. He is the one who needs to be held accountable. If not by you, then by his own children,” Sam said, his voice growing more passionate as he gripped her hands in his.

“So after all of the years, all of the anguish, are you saying you are ready to walk away from your children after finally finding them? Are you afraid about how they will receive you, now that you finally saw Kelly?” Sam let Deirdre’s hands fall away.

“Maybe. But no, of course I can’t walk away. I’m just realizing how I can’t undo what has happened. It’s a wrong that can never be righted.”

“What do you want to do? You know I will support any decision you make.”

“I just don’t know what to do, how to approach the situation. Our plans relied on him connecting us with the authorities. I can’t just knock on the door with the big reveal. And we can’t assume that Joel’s death isn’t somehow connected
to his investigation. Shouldn’t we let the police know why he was here, what he was doing?”

Deirdre felt like her head might explode with all the complications that surrounded her. Was Joel’s murder connected to what he’d been investigating? Would her children believe that she had always loved them and that she wasn’t showing up at the eleventh hour of their adolescence just to make it more painful? Could she ever have a sliver of their hearts, or had Mara filled all the space intended for her?

“I’ve been thinking the same thing. I wouldn’t ever do anything to interfere with your reunion with your children, but I do think we owe some kind of obligation to the man who found them for you. I just don’t want to go directly to the police. I’ve wondered if we couldn’t consult Neil Perry first. He’s got the kind of mind that can absorb the sensitive considerations we have on our hands.”

Sam stood and went over to Deirdre, putting his arms around her.

“You’re right, Sam. He’d at least offer us some objectivity. I can’t think straight anymore and I know I must be making it difficult for you. I’m sorry to bring all of this into your world, I really am,” Deirdre said, stepping into Sam’s embrace.

“It’s
our
world, honey,
our
world. Don’t ever apologize for our life.”